Thankful in Times of Drudgery – Part 2 of 5

At one point along the way, the children of Israel complained that their food lacked variety. They were fed up with manna, manna, and more manna (Num. 11:4-10). Their complaining got so bad that it turned into weeping. All the men stood in the doorways of their tents and wept bitterly. Their families who were inside their tents wept with them. That must have been quite a noise!

Of course, God was highly offended, and Moses was extremely displeased with them. If they had only asked nicely, they might have received a proper portion of meat to eat every day, but because of their bad attitude they suffered God’s wrath instead. Indeed, their complaining infuriated God so much that He sent them a plague of quail (the meat that they had requested), which lasted for an entire month. They had so much meat that it made them sick.

Thankfully, His wrath didn’t last forever. There was a point where God put things back in balance because, according to the account in Exodus (Ex. 16:12-15, 35), their daily diet consisted of a day’s worth of manna in the mornings and quail in the evenings. Interestingly, they ate manna for the entire forty years that they were kept wandering in the desert, until they entered the Promised Land.

When I consider our modern-day grocery stores, I’m amazed at the wide variety of foods available. I wonder if we really appreciate what we have. Do we realize how blessed we are? Are we thankful that we can buy almost anything we want so conveniently?